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Use Of Ad Blocking Is On The Rise

Tech-savvier readers of gaming and tech sites are more likely to use ad blockers, says a report from PageFair

Last year, Niero Gonzalez, the 35-year-old founder of video gaming site Destructoid, was browsing TechCrunch and saw an article about OkCupid’s “brilliant” move to ask users with ad blocking software to donate $5 to the site. Gonzalez became curious how many of his own readers were blocking ads, so he turned to an outside company — BlockMetrics, now called PageFair — to do a site audit.

“We have a savvy, techy user base, but I was still shocked by how many were using ad blockers,” says Gonzalez. He says the site gets 3 million visitors per month. The audit revealed that nearly half of his readers were blocking his site’s ads. He estimates that the blocking was costing him “thousands” of dollars per month, and appealed to his readers as to what the site could do to recover that revenue, including asking them to unblock Destructoid or to sign up for a membership program that would entitle them to an ad-free experience. Gonzalez also asked his video game fanatics why they were blocking ads.

“The majority of feedback from readers is that they block because of the nuisance of ads. People are fed up with ads that expand and blow up in their face,” says Gonzalez. “If I wasn’t in the publishing industry, I would definitely use it.”

That was in March. Since then, disclosures about NSA monitoring has Web surfers thinking more about their online privacy according to surveys, and the actions they can take to prevent tracking, including ad blocking. Destructoid’s level of blocking is high, but reflective of a wider consumer trend, according to PageFair, a Dublin-based company that helps sites detect when their ads are being blocked. In a report released this week based on data collection from 220 websites using the company’s services, PageFair says that 22.7% of web surfers are blocking ads. Looking at a smaller subset of sites for the past 4 months, the company says that the use of ad blocking is growing at a rate of 43% per year.

PageFair points to Google Trends to back that up, showing that searches for the term “adblock” have doubled in the past year. There’s also been an increase in ad-and-tracking blocking services out there; in addition to AdBlock Plus, there’s Disconnect and Abine, among others.

Firefox and Chrome users are more likely to block ads

Caveat: PageFair’s report reflects ad blocking activity on websites that went to the company because they feared their readers were ad blocking, so the results may be skewed. A report from ClarityRay released in 2012 found an average blocking rate of 9.26%. But regardless, the PageFair Report provides insight into the kind of users who are adblocking. Unsurprisingly, readers of gaming and tech sites are more likely to block ads than readers of finance and travel sites, likely because the tech savvier readers know that ad blockers exist and how to install them. People using Mozilla’s Firefox and GoogleGoogle‘s Chrome are more likely to block ads, perhaps because many ad blocking tools were first made available for those browsers. People surfing with AppleApple‘s Safari and MicrosoftMicrosoft‘s Internet Explorer are apparently happier to see ads, or are using IE’s “Do Not Track” option rather than actually blocking ads.

If accurate, it shows that consumers are finding their own ways to avoid annoying and/or privacy-invasive ads, rather than waiting for government intervention over online tracking and ad targeting — which may never come.

But the desire for privacy and/or a faster, cleaner surfing experience comes at a cost to publishers.

“One typical PageFair client site suffers from 25% adblocking, costing them nearly $500,000 per year,” says the report. PageFair CEO Neil O’Connor explains that the publisher has 90 million page views per month with a $2 CPM.

“The pool of people who will accept ads is smaller and smaller and those ads get more aggressive and intrusive to target them, and then those people get annoyed and seek out ad blockers,” says O’Connor. “It’s a vicious cycle.”

“Most people who use Adblock don’t realize it’s mom-and-pop shops that are going to be hurt,” says Destructoid’s Gonzalez. “Privacy businesses make their money by taking money away from us. They’re really throwing us under the bus.”

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1. Sites slow up considerably because most of these sites are greedy and they show as many ads as possible. 2. Deliver malware/adware/trojan payload as part of ads. The only way to be safe is block them.

Something we have to factor into IE’s metrics are its use in business.

Many companies, if not most, use IE because their existing internal applications are keyed to it. Most of the time that also means workers at their desks are also using the version of IE approved by their employer. Since IT tends to use highly vetted software, which is to say older versions than at-home consumers use, we likely are seeing a highly skewed browser use statistics. Many people access the web using IE because they have no choice.

This is creating a growing rift between business use and consumer use of the web. While three or more years ago, Microsoft could count on business to hold users to IE, now it is likely pushing people to check the web on mobile devices, or just use mobile apps. That adds to gulf between mobile and consumer web users and traditional desktop/laptop computer users-which further hurts Microsoft.

Microsoft’s stubborn insistence on driving proprietary standards on the web hobbled IE. It also failed to improve IE in the same way it did Windows. Rather than fix anything, they adopted a new version and made people “upgrade” to new and different problems. Like most of its ham-handed attempts to force users to live in its ecosystem, these moves are coming back to haunt it.

As for ad blocking? I think over time this is a cat-and-mouse game that the consumer will never end. This will be an endless push and pull. Plus the metrics shown don’t take into account that some tracking tools don’t work because of browser security settings. (Google Analytics for example) Thus the ads may well be seen far more than reported, even if raw site visits seem lower. And some ads display even with blocking software. If blocking really did work we would see the impact in other metrics.

I have worked for many businesses that had no choice but to keep IE6 for years and years because IE7 broke compatibility with some internal app built on .NET or VB. The Win32/64 API’s and the .NET itself are all junk. Anyone who creates new apps that can only work on Windows inside of IE is simply a moron. Hire a new Developer, problem solved.

& here is something that makes sense. How about the people who are whining about losing revenue because it is human nature to be annoyed at some fruitcake pushing something in front of our faces when we are trying to accomplish something, how about this? They stop buying adds that piss people off first & foremost? There you go whiners, the recovery of your lost revenue. Shut the hell up. & leave us the hell alone. We will block you. Save your money. Go away.

My message to publishers in light of ad blocking is this: diversify your income outside of ads, and consider a freemium model with great perks for your biggest fans. I’m lucky to have made it this far on advertising alone. Its a good reminder that the web is still young and figuring itself out, and we have to rise to that challenge. I’m rolling up my sleeves this year and rethinking my entire business.

these ad blockers really do help as long as these companies are so greedy like oh ‘click her to win an iphone5′ or stuff like ‘sign up to win this and that’ and also more ad’s asking you to ‘sign up for trial offers’ and all that crap. when the only thing it really does is cause a computer to run so freakin slow. as long as they keep doing that more and more people gonna start using these programs because it is a nuisance and we deserve to surf the internet without constantly being harassed by ever damn ad that shows up

Try loading youtube without adblocker, its a freaking nightmare if you don’t have adblocker. The ads play for 15 or 30 seconds or you have to click the kill button when an ad comes on. Just a very annoying experience without adblocker. And don’t get me started with justin tv, their ads are worse than youtube.

It’s a classic bait and switch tactic. Whine about mom and pop shops failing cause of *gasp* adblocks, hiding the fact that it’s big content farms like Destructoid that are losing out more. We’re doing fine thank you very much and we tend to buy ads from non-techie/gaming sites. Stop using us as an excuse.

It’s like internet censors, trolls and the NSA. They holler about “child porn” and “terrorism” when all they want is to spy on common criminals, p2p pirates, and love interests. It’s the same playbook.

I use Adblock Plus in Firefox because I can. I have no idea what I am not seeing that others see but every now and then when people talk about an ad I notice I am not seeing those ads. I hear that Chrome lets you block ads in Youtube so Google does not seem to care about their own products blocking their own ads.

I look at it like an arms race, back when popups were crippling the Internet we got a popup blocker. Now the NSA spying is putting fear into people, we will soon have better privacy options.

You don’t get anything for free ever. You complain about adverts on YouTube and other sites, but how do you think they can afford to run the site so you can watch most of the illegal content for nothing? Imagine how many of you will complain to high heaven and refuse to use a site such as YouTube if they charge you 50p to watch a short music video or charge you by the minute? How many of you will whine and moan if a news site charges you before you can even read the content, what about paying for information that’s currently free to access? All you guys are doing with your constant complaining is thinking about today and not giving a care in the world about the future, which will leave you all complaining a shed load more than you currently are.

You think you’re getting “free” access to the latest music when you listen to the radio? No, they make their money through advertising, should that advertising be banned, you’ll have to start paying for the privilege or the stations will go belly up…. You think you’re getting the news for “free” on your way to work each morning with your “free” newspaper on the bus or wherever? No, the paper’s filled with advertisements, heck even the cheap TV you’re watching is mostly paid through advertisers, ban the adverts and you’ll soon see your cable prices going up to stupid amounts. It’s like the people who want to see alcohol and cigarettes banned without even thinking how it would affect them when they are forced to pay more tax to make up for it, no it seems like people just want everything and have it all their own way, well that’s not the way the economy works I’m afraid and it’s be thanks to you whining so and so’s that we’ll all end up paying through the nose just because you don’t like something.

So the next time you’re getting something for nothing and you’d like to whine and moan about the advertisements that’s paying for it, before blocking the add send an email to the website in question and offer to pay for it out of your own pocket, but of course none of you would see that as acceptable either, would you.